Toronto Jewish school charged with using racist textbook

Thursday, November 29, 2012 | by

A Canadian Islamic organization has accused a Toronto-area Jewish day school of using a textbook that vilifies Muslims.

In a Nov. 19 letter to Jewish groups, the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations charges that a textbook used at the Joe Dwek Ohr HaEmet Sephardic School employs “inflammatory and hateful terms in describing Muslims.”

CAIR-CAN alleges that the book, “2000 Years of Jewish History,” describes Muslims as “rabid fanatics” with “savage beginnings.”

“The entire chapter devoted to Islam presents a pernicious and extreme portrayal of Muslims and the Islamic faith,” the group said in its letter to the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

The group wants the Centre for Jewish Education of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto to investigate.

No one from CIJA, the Wiesenthal Center or Ohr HaEmet responded to requests for comment.

CAIR-CAN’s salvo came on the heels of an investigation by Toronto-area police of a local Islamic school. York regional police found that teaching materials at the East End Madrassah attacked Jews and “suggested intolerance” but were not criminal.

Part of the madrasa’s curriculum encouraged boys to keep fit for jihad, compared Jews to Nazis and referred to “Jewish plots and treacheries.”— jta